of Mr. Hearst, which an open candidacy would entail; for he is
at once vain and thin-skinned.

Springing thus from reluctance to make up his mind, the
announcement was received as the evidence of a very large mind.
Among the public, Mr. Hoover was taken for a man who cared more for
principle than for party or for politics. Among the politicians, he
assumed the proportions of a portent, with a genius for politics
second only to that of Roosevelt himself, who in a difficult
situation could take the one position and say the one thing that
might force his nomination.

The Democrats pricked up their ears. Mr. Wilson, sick and
discouraged, began to entertain hopes of a candidate who would save
the Democracy from ruin. Homer Cummings, National Chairman of Mr.
Wilson's party, began to regard Mr. Hoover's possible nomination
favorably. The Republican managers became alarmed. They knew from
Mr. Hoover's friends that he, as his Washington newspaper manager
had said, thought the Democratic nomination not worth having; but
they feared lest by the course he was pursuing he might make it
worth having, might take it, and might rob them of the election
which they felt safely theirs. If they could induce him to declare
his Republicanism, the Democrats would drop him, the public would
cease to be interested in him as a dramatic personality too big for
party trammels, and they themselves could ignore him.

It was decided to have him read out of the Republican party as a
warning to him of how he was imperiling his hopes of the only
nomination he valued, and at the same time have Republican leaders
go to him or his friends and advise him and them that if he would
only declare his Republicanism, a popular demand would force his
nomination at Chicago.

Senator Penrose was chosen as the Republican whose pontifical
damnation would most impress Mr. Hoover. The late W. Murray Crane,
whom I have heard described at Mr. Roosevelt's dinner table as "the
Uriah Heap of the Republican party," was the emissary who would
advise Mr. Hoover to confess the error of his ways and seek the
absolution of Penrose. A diary kept at Republican National
Headquarters in New York reveals the visits there at the time the
plan was made of Mr. Crane and others who took part in the
enterprise. Mr. Penrose got up from a sick bed and thundered: under
no circumstances would he permit the nomination of Mr. Hoover.

The plot succeeded. In a few days, Mr. Hoover declared